¹³ Take, for example, the case of a 93-year-old woman who lives in India. From infancy she was taught to believe in reincarnation. When she began to study the Bible through correspondence with her son living abroad, she readily accepted what she was learning about Jehovah and his promises. However, the teaching of reincarnation was so embedded in her mind that she protested when her son wrote her about the condition of the dead. She said: “I just cannot understand the truth of your Scriptures. All religions teach that something inside us is immortal. I have always believed that the body dies and that an invisible part is reincarnated in other bodies over and over again some 8,400,000 times. How can this not be true? Are most religions wrong?” Can “the sword of the spirit” overturn such a strongly entrenched belief? After further Scriptural discussions on the subject, she wrote some weeks later: “I am finally beginning to understand the real truth about death. It gives me great joy to know that when the resurrection occurs, we will be able to meet our dead loved ones. I hope that God’s Kingdom comes soon.”

The 93-year-old woman mentioned earlier needed to know why the teaching of an immortal soul (or spirit) is so prevalent. Understanding where that doctrine originated and how it entered most religions of the world was essential to persuade her to accept what the Bible teaches on the subject.b